Happy March! I hope you’re slowly thawing out, wherever you are. As for me, I’m still freezing. My warm, South Carolina-raised blood is just not used to snow living on the ground for weeks at a time.

I don’t know if it’s the cold weather, being trapped in the house with the kids for days on end or just me justifying yet another ridiculous habit, but lately I’ve really been into deep-frying. I love emptying an entire jug of glistening canola oil, glug by glug, into my cast-iron pot with deep sides that work especially well for containing splatters. While heating the oil slowly, I batter whatever it is that I’m frying — chicken wings, oysters, dough — and lay it out lovingly with one of my spider skimmers and a paper towel-lined platter. I love dropping drippy battered and breaded lumps into 350-degree oil and watching as they emerge, golden-brown, triumphant and shimmering with hot oil. Try it. I challenge you to find something that will make you more proud than deep-frying something well. I know, it should be kids, career, personal milestones. Yada, yada, yada. Go deep fry!

We eat a lot of yogurt over here at Chopsticks Palace (incidentally, that’s what I’m going to call my food truck one day too). My real love of yogurt started back in the days when I studied in London as a graduate student. It was 2001, I was broke as all get-out, and in the post-9/11 world I was living in, I missed the United States, my family and friends and sour cream. In that order, of course.

My student budget meant that I survived on heaping bowls of chili in London. It kept my belly warm and full (whenever wine wasn’t in there), but what I really loved were the toppings we Americans associated with chili — corn chips, green onions, shredded cheese, and, of course, my beloved, my one and only sour cream. But sour cream wasn’t readily found back then in the market near my dorm, so I figured out pretty early on that yogurt could be a good substitute.

Big news today, folks: a few weeks ago, Marx Foods got in touch with me and offered me the opportunity to be one of ten bloggers to try Silere Alpino Origin Merino Lamb and to develop a recipe using their meat. After I wiped off all the drool from my keyboard, I typed a resounding, “YES OMG PLEASE ALL THE LAMB” (or something to that effect; I try to be a little bit professional, sometimes). Two days later, an icebox filled with lamb arrived at our front doorstep. I may have cried a little.

I broke open my package and pulled out cut after cut of glorious lamb meat. The kids crowded around me, curious about why their mother was simultaneously stomping happy feet, shrieking with delight and marveling over the color and marbling of frozen meat. I explained to the contest to them. Ge Ge (my four-year-old son) grew quiet, his eyes wide. “Mom. Mom. I’m so serious with you right now. Things are about to get AWESOME.”

Things did get awesome. They got awesome in the form of two Frenched lamb racks, marinated overnight in a glorious, yogurt-based tandoori marinade.

Happy Year of the Goat! If you were born in 1979 like me, chances are it’s your year, too. I’m hoping for a banner year for our family. So far, it’s been excellent, although a little cold (compared to South Carolina and Malaysia, at least).

Being cold also means that we’re having a pretty low-key Chinese New Year’s this year, but this weekend we’ll probably head out to A&J, our favorite Chinese breakfast haunt in Annandale (about 15 minutes from where we live).